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How to write a ballad
from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit A [[ballad|'ballad']] is a narrative composition in rhythmic verse suitable for singing. Originally ballads were not written down. They were a way to pass tradition and culture down from generation to generation; the music helped people to remember the story. The traditional ballad form has a few easily replicated characteristics that have made it a popular storytelling device for hundreds of years. Steps Write a story.Do you want to write a memorable ballad? While there are no real rules for writing a ballad, Ballads usually tell a story. Think of a Plot or Theme. Just like writers need a solid plot for writing a story, you will need a good storyline for your ballad. While the more gifted or lucky can churn out an impressive and largely improvised piece, the majority of us will need some guidance. Try to think outside the box. Who says it has to be realistic or ordinary? Why not write a ballad set in a fictional universe, with mysterious and fantastical characters and plots? If this is a school project, your teacher will likely be impressed if you can think outside the box. Find a starter phrase. Perhaps you want to write a ballad for a particular occasion or to commemorate a certain event or person. Maybe, you just want to write a song, but at the beginning you're not sure what it will be about. If a phrase or verse just pops into your head out of the blue, you can use that as your starter phrase. This is what people often refer to as inspiration. If the phrase is not particularly catchy and doesn't seem to summarize the story or describe the story's main idea, then you probably have a chorus; the lines that are repeated over and over again throughout a song. Otherwise you probably have a verse or part of a verse. Write a ballad about a specific thing. Think about that thing and write down some key words and phrases that can be used to describe it. When one of these catches your fancy, you can build the rest of the ballad around it, maybe by using other words or phrases on your list or maybe by using entirely different words and phrases. Rhyming format is entirely up to you, but here are some examples. Complete the verse or chorus that contains your starter phrase. Ballads typically have four line verses, much like poems, of which two or more rhyme. Common rhyme schemes include a,a,b,b, a,b,a,b or a,b,c,b (where the a lines and b lines rhyme). Build one verse around your starter phrase using these techniques. If the phrase you began with already has two or more lines, your task is that much easier. Some ballads can have the chorus built into each verse. In these cases, the rhyme scheme is often abac, where the two-line chorus occupies the second and fourth lines ("b" and "c") of each verse. There are cases where the rhythm, or the cadence, of the ballad is more important than the words that rhyme. Use a consistent meter. The meter is basically the pattern of syllables in a song or poem. Most ballads use the same meter throughout the song, or the meter for the chorus may differ from that of the verses. This is what dictates the rhythm. Every line has the same number of syllables and the same number of accented syllables; or Lines that "go together" will have the same number of syllables and accented syllables. For example, in a ballad with an abac rhyme scheme, the "a" lines may each have 7 syllables, of which four are accented, while the "b" and "c" lines each have 6 syllables, of which 3 are accented. Complete the remaining choruses and verses using your template. Once you have the first chorus or verse down, you just need to complete your story following the same structural guidelines you used for the first verse that you wrote. Don't be a slave to that structure, though. If you need to vary the length of a line or even of a verse here and there, go ahead and do it, and if you want to deviate from your rhyme pattern feel free to do so if it will make your poem better. If you first wrote the chorus, you can repeat that over and over throughout the song leaving it unchanged or changing it only slightly each time. If you first wrote a verse, you may find it easier to write the rest of the verses before trying to write the chorus. Edit your ballad. Let a little time pass, and then come back to your ballad and edit it with fresh eyes and ears. If you got stuck on a line or two earlier you couldn't find the right rhyme, for example, or there were just too many syllables come back and see if you can fix them now. Cut out any unnecessary verses, leaving only what the story needs. Once you have finished read it over so that you are happy with it, if you are not go through the steps again. Whatever you do, do not plagiarize. Tips It's OK to write a ballad without music. A ballad is a form of lyrical poetry, which means simply that it can be sung. It doesn't have to be. This is how rap came to be. If you sing or hum as you go, sometimes the words will just flow. It's just the trick of getting started. Don't be afraid to be creative with your rhymes. If you try to force all your rhymes to be perfect, your song's lyrics may end up sounding silly. It's not necessary to use four-line verses and choruses. While this is the most common ballad form, occasionally you'll find a ballad with, say, six lines, or one with a varying number of lines per chorus. Perhaps yours will be one of these. If you know the story you want to tell, but you're having trouble putting it into a poetic structure, write out the story first. Don't worry about putting the story into verse yet--just get it down. You may find it easier to organize once the story is written. No ballad is perfect. Reading ballads by other writers can help a lot. You can learn what works and what doesn't, or it inspire you for a theme or idea. Be flexible. Ballads don't all follow the same structure and rhyme scheme. Find what works for you and the ballad, and experiment with variety. Read old ballads, new ballads, and ballads written in other countries to get an idea of how to write with a different flair to your rhyme. Warnings Because ballads are so easy to write, and because telling a story is so much fun, ballad writers often tend to go overboard and want to include every clever verse and rhyme that they can think of. Too many verses may weigh down the ballad and make it boring, especially since the ballad tends to be quite repetitive in the chorus and in the verses also. Related wikiHows How to Write a Song How to Write a Poem How to Write a Love Poem How to Write a Short Story How to Write a Salable Life Story How to Write an Autobiography How to Write a Children's Story How to Be a Poet External links Rhyme Zone Rhyming Dictionary and Thesaurus Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on "How to Write a Ballad". All content on wikiHow can be shared under a {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Creative Commons BY-NC-SA-2.5 license]. Category:How-to articles Category:Imported, updated, or created in 2011 Category:WikiHow articles